Can't Hold Me Down
by Maniac SwordBreaker
Summary: Prelude to Super Mario World. The Mario Brothers are having a hard time finding Peach in unfamiliar land, yet a Yoshi is willing to help. Meanwhile, Mario starts to feel that Dinosaur Island is familiar after all.


**Can't Hold Me Down**

It's been a week since Mario, Luigi, and Peach's arrival in Dinosaur Island via hot-air balloon travel. The trio's plans of having a peaceful vacation away from civilization had been cancelled when one of them mysteriously vanished in thin air. This unfortunate victim was none other than Princess Peach, the only twenty-four/seven damsel-in-distress of the party.

The Mario Brothers searched around aimlessly for hours, but to no avail; they were in unfamiliar land after all, so they had no clue as to where she could be. And yet, they didn't end up empty-handed…

Turtle-like creatures were carrying an egg, creamy-white layer with emerald spots all over. Luckily for the unique egg, the Mario Brothers were at the right place at the right time to rescue it from those villains-'n-a half-shell.

Right after the rescue, the egg hatched to reveal a comically-looking yet friendly dinosaur, whose name was…

"Yoshi!"

It was a very intelligent and talkative creature indeed, intelligent enough to explain that Bowser Koopa was imprisoning all his brothers and sisters in eggshells. It didn't take a rocket scientist to discover that Bowser was behind Peach's disappearance too.

For the time being, Mario and Luigi were forced to take shelter in Yoshi's House, trying to figure out where to head next.

* * *

Mario watched his two green siblings as they drifted away to dreamland. It had been quite a day; a four-hour search for Toadstool was enough to make it end quickly, and badly. Despite the tiredness he felt, Mario was too deep in thought to lie down and catch some 'Zees'.

He observed Luigi while he was sleeping soundlessly on a red couch beside his own. _He's always the quiet one,_ he thought,_ even in his sleep he doesn't utter a sound…unlike me. _He grinned as he pictured himself sleeping; laying prone on a bed, tossing and turning, snoring, and muttering his favorite Italian snacks (_'spaghetti…pizza…lasagna…oh-e ravioli, oh-e pepperoni'_)

He slouched and then turned his attention to Yoshi, who was sleeping on a rocking chair, moving back and forth as the chair produced a couple of screeching sounds. _Now that's something you don't see everyday; a Dino rocking himself to sleep,_ he smiled at his own joke._ What's next, sucking Boos with vacuum cleaners? Or maybe saving the world with a hydro-pump tied behind my back? Hmm…that's sounds like an idea. It can happen one day---Not!_ Mario's smirk quickly faded away into a frown as he recalled the situation he was in.

He took one last glance at the 'Emerald Sleeping Couple' and stood up, his sapphire-blue eyes surveying his surroundings. Indeed, the Dino's house was a light of comfort that gave Mario a sense of fluffiness inside. The marble floors were covered with a couple of oval-shaped carpets here and there. The fireplace was lined with some nicely designed geometrical shapes, it was almost as if the fireplace was underlined, bolded, and italicizedin order to place emphasis on it. The round, wooden dinner table with silver linings was decorated with a few vases, an image of a Yoshi egg embedded on each one. Many framed pictures hung on the walls, the most spectacular in color effects—varying from stenciled and water colored to real-life photographic images—were the ones that seemed to include Yoshi's family and friends; they all looked alike after all, making it hard to distinguish family from friends and vice versa. If it wasn't for their extreme diversity in size and color though, it would have been absolutely _impossible_ to _even_ make out which Yoshi was which.

The plumber's eyes froze all of a sudden when a peculiar photo hanging above the fireplace caught his attention. He approached it to take a better look and lo and behold it turned out to be one of a kind; it included four human children and a lone green Yoshi. The children were sitting on golden sand while the Dino stood in between them. All of them had their backs turned from a bewildering background. The setting sun was one heck of a _Leonardo da Vinci_, as it painted the sky with orange and the color's many brothers and sisters, enchanting the background with a perfect afternoon setting. Spots of silvery entities—obviously not from Orange's 'family'—were scattered throughout the colorful sky, each one containing curls of a darker shade of silver all around it; this artful technique triggered a realistic 3D effect, so the clouds stuck out of the picture like sore thumbs.

Other than painting the sky and clouds, _Leo the Sun_ also decorated the blue ocean with glittering effects. _Leo _even colored a portion of the ocean's surface yellow – technically though, it was the ocean which actually gave _Leo _its hazy, lanky reflection on the liquid's surface.

Yoshi waved his four-fingered hands about with a happy expression. The young lads wore nothing but diapers and identical caps; yet the caps differed in hue – red, green, yellow, and purple ordered from left to right. The first two in order, red and green, almost seemed like twins as they sat innocently with smiles on their faces. While the other two, yellow and purple, had clearer differences of appearance from each other as they grinned sinisterly – the yellow baby was plump and the purple one was thin. Mario brushed his gloved fingers on the image of the baby with the red cap…why did this picture feel so familiar to him? Images began rushing from the back of his head…images of his child-self riding on Yoshi…chasing this purple Magikoopa flying on a broomstick…mega-sized enemies trying to stop their quest…huge Koopa Troopa…fighting on the moon…Raphael the Raven…mega-sized Bowser in an epic final confrontation...Mario started shivering at the thought of that huge Bowser as if he actually went through all these events. And yet, it was impossible that he ever went through these events. He lived in Brooklyn all his live until they discovered this magical world a couple of years ago. He had a mom and a dad in Brooklyn. He can't have been born here, right? Yet, why does this place feel familiar? Why does he feel that he have met Peach before? Why wasn't he shocked when he first laid his eyes upon Yoshi? Why does he feel…that he's home?


End file.
